Arms Reached Out Too Late
by Empire of Dust
Summary: The Collector base is crumbling, and it threatens to take Shepard and his crew along with it.


The tunnel stretched on for what Theo Shepard thought was forever. The Collector's screams echoed at his back, their shots danced at the back of his feet. And before him, Jack and Jacob were but dark shapes that blended into the shadows of the narrow cavern. All of the foreign sounds melded together with his own ragged breathing that hummed in his ears, the wanton beating of his heart (pumped full of cybernetics and things that don't seem to be doing their job). The monsters running at his heels still pursued him like crazed beasts loosed from the depths of hell, the flurry of bullets coming from their assault rifles a never ending cacophony.

It was all he can do to keep up, all he can do to keep himself from falling. The Collector base was crumbling, and the world did not want to stay still. The whole place shook with a magnitude that threatened to knock him on his feet.

Harbinger spoke, it's deep voice that boomed like thunder enfolded him. It dug deep into the core of his being, some ill begotten parasite feeding off of his body and soul.

"_Your species had the attention of those infinitely your greater." _

But Theo pressed on. He will not succumb; he will not let himself be taken in by it's siren call that pushes at the limits of his consciousness. Harbinger and its promises of greatness tugged at him in way Theo could not explain.

And it scared him.

And he wondered if that was the overgrown cockroach's plan all along, to win him over.

"Shepard," Jack, her half-nude form barely illuminated by the lights that shined at the end of the tunnel. "Hurry the fuck up!" Even from so far away, the impatience in her body language was as loud as Harbinger's voice, which still rang along the cavern, long after it had spoken.

A part of Theo did not think he could make it, and the other half purred to him to give up, that the end of his life would be painless. And it whispered in his ear of all of the great things he would soon be part of.

"_That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction."_

Lungs on fire, lungs so close to bursting every breath he took were tantamount to torture. His legs buckled under the sweet song of surrender (oh, how it caressed him so), and deep in his heart he truly felt like this was the end.

"I swear to god, if you die on me now I'll spit on your corpse!"

Panic, raw and hurried, burst into her voice then, and the fact that Jack was worried screamed volumes to him. Somehow, he managed to propel himself even faster, hurl himself towards the exit regardless of how much his Cerberus-wrought body protested.

Words would not flutter out of his lips, only half-sayings and garbled slurs meant to mean something. They came across as dry-heaves as Theo stumbled his way closer to her side. Jacob had already left them, and he could hear the hum of the _Normandy's_ engines, followed by the rattle of an assault rifle, tiny and far away.

But the faint hum of the _Normandy's _engines was a beacon for him to follow. Something to hold close to in foolish hope.

"Just—just go on without me," Theo managed to gasp out. She hesitated, torn between waiting for him, and jumping through the open side-door of the _Normandy_. Jacob and Joker clutched assault rifles in their fists, held them so high. "Go!"

And she did, her leaping form easily caught by Jacob. Whether it was his insistence that she leave, or the ever-growing horde of Collectors behind him that finally persuaded her, Theo would never know.

They all beckoned to him, Joker and Jacob and Jack, the Collectors. Harbinger. And Theo did not know who to listen to. They all wanted parts of him he couldn't give, they all wanted a little slice of who he was.

It was all too much and all too confusing.

But he resisted the calls of Harbinger and his assurances of mortal ascension, resisted the temptation to just give up. Giving up was tantamount to betrayal, tantamount to letting the Reapers win this war.

The world needed a hero, and Theo was not going to let them down.

Using what little he had of his strength, Theo tore up the platform where his crew awaited him. Jack's expression was hopeful, her hands outstretched and waiting for his.

Only to have the platform ripped away from beneath his feet. Some fortuitous slab of steel stabbed into it and made it splinter, break away in chunks.

The ceiling above him was caving in.

Pieces of heavy metal sheeting hailed down like curses sent from above just for him. As if somehow, the powers that be decided today was the day that Theo would be smote for sins long since committed.

It was all smoke and flames, screeching Collectors and arms reached out too late. The ground beneath him disintegrated and left him spinning wildly, hands grabbing nothing but air. His fingers grazed Jack's for one agonizing moment.

Jacob ripped her backward to save her from tumbling after Theo, shouting in alarm.

"Watch it!" He growled into her ear.

"Shepard, you asshole!" Jack screamed. Jacob still held so tightly onto her. When he finally let her go, she shoved Jacob in angry frustration, and he slammed against the wall of the _Normandy _with a hard _thud_.

And Theo was falling.

Falling.

Above him, Jacob and Joker watch on, their expressions of horror mirroring his own. Jack turned around just in time for Theo to catch the way her face contorted in anguish, like she just had something great torn from right between her hands, stolen.

The fingers of flame that curled around him were wretched hands that plunged him deeper into oblivion. The pain and fire ripped away at his body, at all of the things Cerberus gave him, rendered all of it obsolete.

Joker and Jack and Jacob grew so tiny, so ant-like, and he was barely aware of how things around him ceased to make sense. Theo's eyes never left the _Normandy_ and what could have been.

He did not want to die.

Oh God, he did not want to—


End file.
